Committee Decisions

CONF 003 XI.35

Amendments to the criteria for the inclusion of cultural and natural properties in the World Heritage List and Guidelines for the evaluation of Nominations to the World Heritage List by ICOMOS and IUCN

In response to specific questions raised by Mr. Michel Parent's report, the Committee adopted the following principles:

(i) States Parties may propose in one single nomination several individual cultural properties, which may be in different geographical locations but which should:

-be linked because they belong to the same historico-cultural group, or-be the subject of a single safeguarding project, or-belong to the same type of property characteristic of the zone.

the geographical zone in which these properties are situated should be delimited and the cultural properties individually described and also precisely localized.

Each State Party submits only the cultural properties situated on its territory (even if these properties belong to an ensemble which goes beyond its borders) but it may come to an agreement with another State Party in order to make a joint submission.

(ii) In its justification of the outstanding universal value of the property nominated, each State should, whenever possible, undertake a sufficiently wide comparison;

(iii) The Committee should not take into consideration nominations of immovable property which are likely to become movable.

(iv) The authenticity of a cultural property remains an essential criterion.

(v) Particular attention should be given to cases which fall under criterion (vi) so that the net result would not be a reduction in the value of the List, due to the large potential number of nominations as well as to political difficulties. Nominations concerning, in particular, historical events or famous people could be strongly influenced by nationalism or other particularisms in contradiction with the objectives of the World Heritage Convention.